Investment Banking
Another best-selling author jumps camp. Corporate thriller writer and ex-banker Ravi Subramanian (If God Was A Banker, The Incredible Banker, I Bought The Monk’s Ferrari) moves from Rupa to Penguin. His new book after The Bankster will be out this year. The story has the usual Ravi ingredients: brilliant academics with inflated egos, a banker who sets up a perfect financial scam, a murder trail that zigzags between Mumbai, Coimbatore and Boston. The move is surprising, as Ravi was one of Rupa’s top authors. The advance Penguin offered must have made him laugh all the way to...er, the bank.
Dig That Pony
There are a lot of changes at Pan Macmillan, publishers of authors like Aravind Adiga, Ramachandra Guha and Colm Toibin. A couple of months ago, its publisher Saugata Mukherjee quit. Then its head-publicity and promotions Rachna Kalra followed. A few senior sales people also left the publishing house. Now there is buzz that Pranav Kumar Singh of Ponytale Books is taking over as publisher. But Ponytale primarily publishes children and young adult books. Is that where Pan Macmillan sees its future?
Print Runners
MarketMyBooks is a first of its kind books marketing consultancy firm. It will help both writers (without the backing of a big publisher) as well as publishers. “It is becoming difficult for publishers big and small to provide personalised services and work around innovative ideas due to resource crunch and the sheer number of books being published, this is where we can step in,” says Lipika Bhushan, formerly marketing head of HarperCollins, whose brainchild MarketMyBooks is.
